Copyright Law
Protects expression, not ideas.
- Relatively long duration. Life of the author plus 70 years in the U.S.
- Software is considered a literary work.
- [[Fair use]] is not considered infringement.
- Registration is not required. Ownership immediately vests in the author. But in the U.S., registration is a prerequisite for filing a legal claim of infringement.
- [[Joint authorship]] is an interesting doctrine that tries to distinguish an author receiving assistance versus the existence of a second author with shared legal ownership.
- Transfers must be in writing, but licenses may be oral, or even just implied.
- [[notice-and-takedown]] strikes an interesting balance and has stood the test of time in the U.S., having existed more or less unchanged since 1998.